Abbie Groves Creative

  The Basket Weave That Shrank, and Learning to Love Negative Space I'm involved in self-study for the Ontario Handweavers Guild Unit 1. I'm learning a ton, mostly via mistakes. I think this is how I learn in general, but also, how I just learn best. Unit 1 is comprised on the basic weaves including plain weave, basket weave and various twill structures. The third basic weave is a 2×2 basket weave, and it taught me the most so far. The first time I tried this sample, I beat it too hard - again...and I didn't fully understand the consequence until I washed it. It shrank the most out of any of my first four weaves. That's the thing about overbeating: the loom doesn't punish you immediately. The wash does. So, this round, I'm paying close attention to the negative space. The negative space is the space between the weave. This time with this sample, I am making sure there actually is some, and, harder still, making sure it's even . That sounds simple written d...

  A Five-Color Repeat and Abandoning the Shuttle I am engaging in a course of self-study for the Ontario Handweavers Guild, Unit 1. Here's a humbling one: I misread the instructions. Was not the first time and probably won't be the last. The project was plain weave with a five-color repeat. I read "five colors" and ran with it — picked five, wove each one in 3×3 blocks, and felt quite pleased. Except a repeat is a different beast. The point isn't five colors sitting next to each other; it's a repeating sequence that builds a rhythm across the cloth. Lesson one, before any weaving lesson: read the whole instruction, then read it again. The surprise of this one was a happy one. Carrying five colors meant managing the selvedge, and I made peace with going bobbin-only for three of the five — no shuttle. On an 11-inch warp that's no hardship at all, and I found I didn't miss the shuttle one bit. In fact, it was freeing in a way, to know that I was not tet...